Pension Application of John Sizer: S6105
Transcribed and annotated by C. Leon Harris
(Virginia)
At a Circuit Superior Court of Law and Chancery held at the Court house for the County of Botetourt on Thursday the 4th day of September 1832 ~~
On this 4th day of September 1832– personally appeared in Open Court before the Honorable Allen Taylor Judge of the Superior Court of Law and Chancery for said County John Sizer a resident of said County aged seventy three years who being first duly sworn doth on his oath make the following Declaration in order to obtain the benefit of the act of Congress passed on the 7th day of June 1832 – That he was born in the County of Baltimore in the State of Maryland in the year 1759 and about the year 1770 removed with his father to Prince William County in Va and in the year 1777 volunteered as a private soldier in a Company Commanded by Captain (afterwards Major) Ewell with whom he marched to Germantown in the State of Pennsylvania that he heard very distinctly the firing at the Battle of Germantown but did not arrive in time to participate in it that he continued in service for three months and was discharged at Germantown that after his return to Virginia he went to reside in the County of Rockingham and in the year 1777 as well as he now recollects [sic: see note below] again volunteered to serve for eighteen months in a company commanded by Capt’n Daniel Smith with whom he marched to Fredericksburg where he was put under the command of Capt’n Adam Willow[?] of Rockbridge County, from Fredericksburg he was taken to Petersburg where he remained untill sometime in the fall of that year when being without clothing suitable for the season, he enlisted for three years he was then attached to a company commanded by Capt’n Beverly Hay and marched in the regiment commanded by Colo Heath [sic: William Heth] to Charleston in South Carolina then he was transferred to Capt’n [Alexander] Parker’s Company and at the Capture of Charleston was made a prisoner and remained so for upwards of eighteen months at the expiration of that time he was taken round by water to James Town in Virginia and exchanged & marched with others to Richmond where he was furnished with money to return home but got no discharge. Colo. Heath Lieutenant Colo. [Gustavus] Wallace and Major Stevenson [sic: David Stephenson] all of Virginia were exchanged at the same time Colo. [Richard] Parker (who commanded a half moon Battery at this time) was killed at the taking of Charleston [sic: actually on 24 April 1781] within twenty steps of this Deponent. in the year 1781 he again volunteered to draw a waggon loaded with flower for the troops from Rockingham to York Town where he was detained during the Siege to haul[?] Bomb Shells Cannon Ball &c – after the surrender of Cornwallis he gave up the team which had been pressed & returned home he further states that including the time he was detained as a prisoner he was in service about three years and six months in all – he hereby relinquishes every claim whatever to a pension or annuity except the present and declares that his name is not on the pension roll of any agency of any State– there is no person living known to him who has a personal knowledge of his services he has resided in the County of Botetourt for the last eighteen years and in Rockbridge for thirteen years – sworn to & subscribed in open Court
signed John hisXmark Sizer
NOTE: The dates given by Sizer are not consistent. Since the Battle of Germantown occurred on 4 Oct 1777, after returning to Virginia and moving to Rockingham County he may actually have reenlisted in 177 8 or 1779. The three-year enlistment was probably in the Continental service after 7 May 1779, when Gen. Washington ordered Col. Richard Parker to raise a Virginia regiment to respond to the British invasion at Savannah and Charleston. Most likely Sizer was in the 2nd Continental Detachment, which was commanded by Col. William Heth, within the 2nd Virginia Continental Brigade commanded by Col. Parker. Sizer claimed to have been a prisoner for 18 months after the surrender of Charleston on 12 May 1780, but if so he could not have been at the Siege of Yorktown, which ended with the surrender of Cornwallis on 19 Oct 1781.